Atlanta, GA - Todd Lamb completed a Pirelli World Challenge podium sweep at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, UT, finishing 1st, 3rd, and 2nd in rounds 3-5 of the Touring Car Championship in the Compass360 National Kart News/SafeRacer Honda Civic. This marks the first win for Lamb in his first season in the World Challenge series.
The weekend was the debut of the B-Spec (TCB) cars in World Challenge, running at the same time as Touring Car (TC). With just two classes on track, and TC being the fastest, another element of passing was added to the mix. Lamb wasted no time capitalizing on his experience with multi-class racing.
In Round 3, Lamb started third. The polesitter checked up on the start, with Lamb falling back to eighth before the first turn. Lamb made his way through traffic and was able to catch the lead pack at the halfway mark of the race. Capitalizing on the braking ability of the Civic, Lamb moved from 4th to 1st in less than a lap, leading the remainder of the race to take his first win in the series. Compass360 teammate Ryan Winchester also got his first podium in the series finishing in 2nd.
Lamb and Winchester also scored podium finishes in Rounds 4 & 5, with Michael Cooper and Tristan Herbert taking the respective wins. Once the points were tallied on the weekend, Lamb closed the Driver’s Championship points gap to 62, and also Honda took the lead over Mazda in the Manufacturer’s Championship by 5 points.
Todd Lamb: “It was a test of perseverance for the Hondas this weekend for sure. With less straighline speed to the turbo cars we had to drive hard the entire race, while the turbos needed to conserve tires to race hard at the end. We were able to capitalize on that for a few positions late in the races. I’m proud of the Compass team and my teammate Ryan - it’s great to see him on the podium!”
Lamb had two unique experiences over the course of the weekend. In the first on-track session he noticed bubbles circling around the cockpit. A confused radio call to crew chief Enrico Diano revealed that the fire extinguisher had been deployed accidentally back at the shop, and a few stray suds had remained in hiding until being stirred into action. On the last lap of the first race, Diano casually mentioned that there was a NASCAR K&N series stock car on the track, and Lamb had a few tense moments as he had to navigate around the lost driver right before taking the checkers.
“I’ve had a lot of things in the car before - water, smoke, steam, fire - but bubbles were a new one. It was a bit baffling at first, and all I could envision was someone in the trunk blowing bubbles while getting thrown around in the turns. And the K&N car - I figured he didn’t even know which direction the track went, but I was hoping he at least realized there were cars coming up on him, ” explained Lamb.
In-car video highlights are available on YouTube:
The Touring Cars head to Laguna Seca next week for Round 6, running in conjunction with GT/GTS.
The Utah races will air on NBC Sports on Sunday May 27 at 11pm. All races are available to view online anytime at www.world-challengetv.com.
Follow along with the race action this season in National Kart News magazine (www.nkn.com), on NBC Sports television, and via social media:
Posted by Todd on 05/03 at 09:02 AM
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